A Life of a Royal Retainer
by VoyeurTheNinja
Summary: One-shot. In the mess hall, the retainers of the Nohrian Royal family talk about the day and exchange particular stories that may or may not be suited for one of their status.
As Arthur finished his daily rotation of carrying out swift and honorable justice to the streets of Nohr, the royal retainer stepped into the camp's mess hall where a few of the other retainers were eating dinner. The large, blonde man walked into the tent, humming a tune to himself as he brought a serving of what was being cooked today and sat a table where royal retainers, Laslow, Selena, Odin, Peri and Niles were sitting. Oddly enough, their biggest eater, Effie, had yet to appear. She most likely was bench-pressing some tree trunks right now. Beruka was most likely with Lady Camilla, too.

"Greetings, friends of justice!" Arthur greeted them in his bombastic tone as he sat down with them and started eating, "How did your day fare?"

"Awful," the red-headed Selena quickly spat and pointed her fork at Laslow, "Genius here ended up flirting with a bunch of girls when we were _supposed_ to be buying supplies for Lord Xander and Lady Camilla! This idiot even got into a bar fight just to impress one of them!"

Laslow acted mock offended, despite Selena having meant that completely. With his trademark shiny smile on his face, the man calmly replied, "My dear Selena, surely you know how I couldn't just ignore that lady's offer, right? She said she would gladly got out for tea with me if I did - and although she had yet to live up to that offer - no fair lady had ever been that generous!"

The girl looked like she was going to explode and shove that fork right into her colleague's cheek, "Really? Really?!"

"Worry not, my sworn allies!" Odin cut in, hoping to dissolve the situation with his usual theatrics with food still in his mouth, "As Laslow was busy engaging in the act of courting a dear maiden and Selena was dealing with this _severe_ situation, I, Odin Dark, had carried out most of the work and made sure that nobody would find out about this _scandalous_ , _disgraceful_ situation at all!" he was going to continue when he felt Peri tug his sleeve.

"Actually, I already told Lord Xander about that," Peri said, with a look that showed that she was not aware of her action's possible consequences, "Lord Xander did tell me to report whatever happened, so I told him right after we got back," she finished with a child-like laugh and then went back to her meal while Laslow, Selena and Odin froze in their seats.

"Oh dear."

"I'm not taking the blame for this!"

"It seems that fate has outwitted us once again!"

As the other side of the table was busy making more noise than the mess hell would like to have, Arthur had been cheerfully listening to their stories with Niles sitting next to him. The one-eyed archer smirked at the sight of his colleague's dilemmas and turned to Arthur himself to hear some more, "So, Arthur," Niles said to him as he slowly cut into his Nohrian steak with a knife, "How did _your_ day go? Effie told me a lot of juicy stuff went down when you went out for patrol."

"Oh, me? Hah, not a day goes by without I performing at least several acts for our country!" Arthur laughed, slapping Niles on the back and accidently causing the man to choke on his meat for a second, "Woops. Sorry. Anyway!" he continued as Peri listened to him with child-like interest, "On my way back from patrol, I saw a cat stuck in a tree near a village and sought out to help the poor thing. Simple acts like these make the world a better place, after all!"

"Uhuh," Niles muttered, sounding bored with the story already while Peri kept listening.

"But as I climbed down the tree, I realized that I had actually gone too far from the camp, as I was surrounded by Hoshidan ninjas who had appeared out of nowhere! Crafty fiends!"

"Oh, oh! Did you kill them all?" Peri energetically asked.

"I did not!" was Arthur's answer, which seemingly drained the energy out of the cotton-haired retainer as she dropped back into her seat, disappointed. The sight amused Niles and brought an entertained smirk to his face, "Because the next thing I knew, a bunch of Faceless came charging at us and the Hoshidan ninjas retreated at the sight of their numbers! But I knew, that if the Faceless came to the village, it would spell disaster! So, with the kitten under one arm, I took my axe and fought the Faceless for hours straight and the next thing I knew, I was in the village itself, as they had nursed me back to health as thanks."

Niles yawned, his chin on his hand, "Awesome story."

"Yay, violence!" Peri squealed, clapping her hands.

As soon as Arthur finished his story, Beruka entered the tent and the quiet assassin approached the table with her cold eyes on Laslow, "Lord Xander's calling for you," she calmly announced, "He wants to see you in his chamber."

Laslow let out a nervous chuckle, "Well, it seems my evening will be busy."

"Lord Xander's not calling for me too... right?" Selena hesitantly asked, and when Beruka shook her head, Selena pumped her fist in the air and cheered, "Yes!"

"Lady Camilla wants to see you instead."

Selena's joy turned into horror as both her and Laslow got up from the table and followed Beruka out of the mess hall, leaving a relieved Odin who looked like he just dodged a mortal sword strike.

"Say 'Hi' to the Prince and Princess for me," Niles said to the two as they went out to pour some salt into their wounds for fun.

And with the mess hall suddenly becoming a lot more quiet, Arthur, Niles, Odin and Peri continued to eat their dinner in peace, enjoying the meal that Felicia thankfully was not in charge of this time. As Peri finished drinking her cup, Arthur noticed that she had ordered milk, which prompted a question from him, "Peri, where did you get that?" Arthur scratched his head, "Last I checked, Mozu said that we had ran out of milk supplies."

"Niles gave it to me when I asked some!" Peri answered in a tone of pure innocent obliviousness.

Arthur casted a questioning look onto the one-eyed archer and a dark smirk grew on Niles' face as he looked back at him and said, "You want some?"


End file.
